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On the breadline If hardship has another name disaster suits it well Depression, melancholy, desolation, living Hell A Hell without the means to feed a child in need of bread To know without the need to ask, it’s ‘empty belly beds’
A house that’s steeped in sorrow, a parent on the edge Misfortune never ending, a grave without a death Money-short and work is too, there’s been no luck of late How do you warm a weeping child with no fire in the grate?
A mother’s face reflecting despondency and guilt A hopelessness that thrives and breeds in poverty and filth A state of destitution, self-destruction, moribund
Held together by the thread that binds her to her young
** Hard blows the wind through troubled times Unfaithful love, wives left behind To fend, to fight, to stay alive To raise a child with one hand tied
When the last meal came to nothing Save a few scraps on a plate When hunger raged throughout the house And the rent was always late
When the walls were thick with mildew And the cold cut like a knife When times were hard and children starved And penury was rife
** And so tonight they sit and quietly shiver in the dark They wait to hear the footsteps of a man who calls a lot He bears a box of margarine, of milk, of bread and jam He’s from the church just down the road - the coming of The lamb
© Joseph G Dawson
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